


Becoming Cloud Strife

by SadisticTrash (Mrs_Strife)



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Amnesia, Character Development, Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Death, Depression, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:27:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_Strife/pseuds/SadisticTrash
Summary: The story of how solitude, self-hatred, and support combined to create and rediscover identity.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 1
Kudos: 44





	Becoming Cloud Strife

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little mini fic I wrote and uploaded on Wattpad like 3 years ago. Figured I'd spend all this isolation time doing something... useful? Stay safe, people!

Soft blue eyes carefully scanned over the wild crowd of children, watching the odd collection of people he called his friends every so often. These “friends” had always run off to play their own games and start their own mock wars. It wasn't that they purposely left him out. No, the children weren't mean—not yet, anyway. He just preferred to be on his own most days.

Their squeals and giggles sharply contrasted his insightful nature like a black inkblot on a clean sheet of paper. He liked watching and they liked playing. It wasn't a problem, really. That's just the way it always was. Occasionally, at the very beginning, they would offer him a chance to join a conversation. He always gave them that slight shake of the head that made the spikes of his pale hair bounce in unison. They shrugged it off and pretended he didn't exist just like he wanted them to.

But, like any shy kid, there were times when he wished he could just forget his inhibitions and say yes. Not nod, but _actually_ use his soft voice. He wished that they would _force_ him to join, push him into it, mock him, _anything_ to at least make him feel more important than the annoying nudge in those children's minds that made them feel guilty if they didn't at least try. They always knew the answer they would receive, and so they stopped asking. They rejected the guilty feeling altogether and forgot it during their childish games. They forgot _him_.

He didn't care, really. Every once in awhile, one of them would look at him wistfully from afar, wondering innocently why he wouldn't leave that stupid, scratchy bench. And if the teacher was on the bench, he would sit on the uneven wooden border to the old playground outside of the rotting schoolhouse. His teachers worried too much about him, and it made the young boy feel smothered. And so, he watched, not quite feeling anything as they shot each other down in their games of make-believe.

By the time he was out of fourth grade, he knew he _wanted_ to have a friend. He'd seen that large group of kids split into their own little cliques and grow to have rivalries between each other. Trivial fights, but fights nevertheless. He was an outsider, but even at the age of nine, he was used to that. He was used to seeing their wars get harder and more strategized than before, though they really weren't being all that organized compared to the tidbits of information that his dad had given on his brief breaks back to the small city of Nibelheim.

The kids learned by then that they had power over their aloof classmate. They'd make fun of how his hair stood up no matter what he did, they mocked his height, and they snickered at how he was the slowest runner on their recess teams. Even a rather heavy boy named Tommy Barnes could outrun him without breaking a sweat. But he wasn't bothered. He was forced into the attention he started to crave. He'd wished for it, and that meant he'd done something to earn it, right? Isn't that what the girls said when he heard them whispering in the back of the room?

It was in fourth grade that a girl named Tifa Lockhart joined their little class. She shuffled into the room quietly, sliding into the only empty desk in the back of room. Her name was scribbled onto a piece of dirty masking tape and stuck to the top right corner where the wood had split and chipped and a rusty screw was poking out just the slightest bit. Her seat was right between his and one of the more (if kids were even considered this that early on) popular girls in the class named Claire.

Miss Turner had stopped writing on the chalkboard to get a look at her new student, a half-written cursive 'G' scrawled in a sickly shade of yellow behind her. She smiled sweetly and brushed the chalk dust off her fingertips before clasping her hands together and explaining that Tifa had been homeschooled all the way until now. She told them that they needed to welcome her and help her catch up if she didn't understand something from last year. Tifa blossomed into the class's most popular member. Not only was her family's fortune enticing with the accompaniment of her overly generous nature, but with those soft burgundy eyes and sleek, dark hair, many students caught themselves staring a little longer than necessary.

He was no exception to this. Even at that age, he was completely smitten with her. The only problem? There _wasn't_ an only problem. There were too many to count. He was only the kid that sat alone at lunch, never daring to open his mouth and protest when Tommy or Jacob would get a little rough with the teasing. Because he wouldn't ever say anything, he was labeled the 'stupid kid' out of all of them. So what if he only shrugged when the teacher called on him? Maybe he just didn't _want_ to answer. Did they ever consider what _he_ was thinking? Of course not. He couldn't even say 'Hello' to Jill, and _she_ was the closest thing to an outcast after him—but even that was just because her teeth looked funny.

The day he and his mother received the news was a difficult one. He'd gone to school that day, as always. He'd listened to Miss Turner when she told them to get into groups for a lab day, but she'd given him detention anyway. He'd gotten into a group all by himself; what was the problem if he wanted to go it alone? Tifa and her friends had played that silly game “House” again where they convinced Tommy Barnes to be the dad and Tifa to be the mom. During their 'dinner', Tifa had told Tommy to get his elbows off the table to set a good example for the children (Claire, Martha, and Karen; Jill played the pet fish that laid on the ground twitching for the duration of the game) and he had kicked over their toys in frustration. Tifa had chased after him and given him a good strong smack across the face. No one said anything to the teacher upon Tommy's orders.

And then he walked home with his nearly empty backpack because Jack beat him up and stolen all his notes again. "It's called mugging," the boy explained before he ran off. When he got home, his mother fussed over him and insisted that they talk to his teacher. He persistently shook his head until she gave up and left to make dinner. Someone rang the doorbell a few hours later; he ignored it. He was working on his math homework, and really, who had time for the mailman when they were in the middle of a particularly long division problem?

At exactly six o'clock, roughly ten minutes after the doorbell rang, he routinely put his papers and pencils in a neat stack and went downstairs for dinner. But this time was different. Mother slumped in a chair in the living room, sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. His heart skipped at least a dozen beats when he saw the folded paper on the end table beside her. _It doesn’t have to be the news._ He reached for the slip, confused when his mother didn't stop him, and read the page carefully. He stood silent for a moment after he finished.

It was a lie. _He_ would be the _last_ person to fall in battle. He couldn't be _dead_. This was a trick one of the kids next door was playing. But the doorbell... Neither of them spoke for a while until his mother got up and locked herself in her room for the rest of the evening. A half-washed stack of dishes still rested on the rack on the counter; a head of lettuce that had been shredded laid to the side. He quietly walked to the kitchen and switched the stove off. Then he headed up to his room and stared at the ceiling until uncontrollable sleepiness fell over him and he closed his eyes. Images of guns and swords crossing, of blood flowing, and of people he knew falling to the ground, eyes wide open but empty disturbed his sleep that night. An incomplete paper labeled "Long Division Practice Problems" laid on the desk across the room. He didn't care about that problem so much anymore.

His father was dead.

He went to school the next day and pretended nothing happened. He didn't turn in his homework, he didn't eat lunch, he didn't watch Tifa and her friends play “House”. He stared into the empty space before him, trying to imagine how his father had gone. Was it fast and painless? Or had Wutai taken advantage of the opportunity to really mess up an enemy soldier while they had the chance? Was he alive somewhere, wounded, but hidden safely and waiting for help like they had seen in movies? Nobody noticed his changed behavior, not even Miss Turner. It seemed so natural for a kid like him to stay withdrawn and mind his own business. He had missing assignments before, and this time didn't seem any different.

But just because it wasn't obvious didn't mean it wasn't there. _Seething_ inside, he threatened to boil over at any moment. He was angry that his father had died. He was angry at the boys for the nasty glares they sent him in the classroom. He was angry at Tifa and her friends for smiling and giggling like nothing was wrong. Why didn’t they understand? He wasn't afraid. He hated their childish war games. Every time a boy hit the dirt and got back up again, his fists clenched a little tighter. That wasn't how it worked. He tore his eyes away, turning back to his notebook. He wrote so hard that the pages tore with some of the letters.

_Once you fall, you don’t get up again. You lay there on the ground while those you love mourn your loss. Then, months later, they might even forget about you, but there’s nothing you can do because you’re a lifeless, rotting corpse crushed under the weight of the worms and the roughly cut stone with your name misspelled across the front._

The seventh time Jake clambered back onto his feet, he had had enough. Angrily tossing his notebook aside, he charged forward, stomping past the giggling girls and the roughhousing boys to approach the mud-streaked idiot. Jake sneered down at him, arms crossed.

"What's wrong, Shrimp? Wanna play?"

Before any of Jake's friends could stop him, the blonde raised one of his balled-up fists and shot it toward the bully's face. When his small hand collided with Jake's face, he opened his mouth to scream the first thing anyone at the school had ever heard him say.

" _That's not how it goes_!" His classmates stood there in silence, watching Jake hold his bloody nose in shocked silence. "You don't ever get _up_ again! When you die, you die!"

With that, he stormed back to his place on the little wooden bench and crossed his little arms tightly. The pout on his face turned toward his lap, and he was still too angry to care about what he did. His knuckles hurt like hell and his eyes burned, but he gritted his teeth and _stared_ at his knees until recess ended. Luckily, the other kids were too scared to tell the teacher about his violent reaction and Miss Turner had had her back turned to another teacher anyway. Even Jake kept his mouth shut and simply shrugged uncharacteristically when Miss Turner asked why he had blood all over his shirt.

On the way home, he was stopped by Tifa, who ran after him as fast as she possibly could until she stopped at his side, panting. She asked if he was alright, and when he nodded, she told him that she was glad that he wasn't as mean as he looked. He shrugged and walked ahead, entering his home and locking the door behind him. Tifa didn't really care, and neither did anyone else. Why should _he_ care?

Two years later, he learned about Sephiroth. The war hero was a big hit throughout the town, and all the boys in Nibelheim worshipped him. That was when he decided to join SOLDIER. He left the house early in the morning and ran all the way to the mountains before looping back and running out of the city to the welcome sign. Finally, he would turn back and go home. He did all he could think of to train. While the kids next door played their stupid games at Tifa's house, he would be doing as many pushups as he could possibly manage on his bedroom floor, jaw clenched and breaths ragged. His record was twenty-five in a minute, and that was not even close to enough.

He no longer yearned for their attention. All his focus was on Shinra's mako-enhanced army. School always came second to his preparations. No, that was a lie. Deep down, he still wanted into their group. He still studied at _least_ five minutes a day. He would stand outside of the Lockhart house and look up into the second floor's middle window, where he could see Tifa giggling with those three stupid children that followed her like lost puppies. Stupid Tommy Barnes, stupid Claire, and stupid Johnny, the new kid in their sixth-grade class. Stupid Johnny and his stupid red hair that Tifa liked to play with. He would never admit it made him jealous.

When Tifa's mother died in eighth grade, he tried not to care. It wasn't the same as losing his father. No, his father died for the protection of the people. What had Mrs. Lockhart done? Probably waltzed around her extravagant home and bossed everyone around before dramatically demanding her maidservants to fan her face and fluff her dress. He stopped his thoughts in their tracks and scolded himself. It was becoming evident how bitter he'd become. But did it really matter anymore? It wasn't like they could read his mind, and they probably didn't care anyway.

He followed when he saw all three of them running toward the mountains one day. Tifa had stubbornly insisted that her mother was across them somewhere. She had to be, right? Where else would she go? He watched as her “friends” chickened out and left her to cross the range herself. Hesitant and not wanting her to go alone, he started after her. What if his father was there with her mother? No, that was a childish thing to think. A kid's dream. He knew the truth, and he knew Tifa did too, but if she wanted to pretend it didn't exist, he was all for joining her for a moment of blissful ignorance. Maybe she would at least pay _some_ attention to him.

They'd trekked up the rugged mountain path in silence and only an occasional sniffle from Tifa disturbed the quiet. When they got to the bridge, she turned to look at him. The first wooden plank creaked under her shoe.

"Thanks for coming with me. I guess the others got too scared."

He nodded and followed her lead. The bridge continued to groan and protest, but that's what old wood was supposed to do... right? Suddenly, the rope on the other end of the bridge snapped on both sides, and at the same time, the planks under their feet crumbled to mere bits of nothingness. Tifa's screams were lost in the wind that shot up into their faces. His heart was hammering violently against his ribs, his breath was caught in his throat, his body was petrified with terror... And then they hit the ground.

Rather, _Tifa_ hit the ground. He landed on top of her with a sharp cry of pain, expecting death to come in a flash of white. Nothing came but the throbbing in his arm. He rolled off her quickly, starting to mumble a quick apology. Then he froze. A halo of blood was spreading quickly around her head, her knee was bent at a bizarre angle, and her long brunette hair was fanned out around her. She grew pale quickly. In a panic, he took the deepest breath he could and yelled as louder than he'd ever yelled before. It was a long, desperate cry for help, even if no words were spoken. He did it twice more before his head became too light. He decided to stop, just in case someone had heard him. Passing out would do no good.

The dull throbbing in his arm had turned into a terrible ache, but he still stumbled over to Tifa and tried to sit her up. Maybe that would help with the bleeding. _Or maybe not_. Maybe she would die, and it would be all his fault. Maybe they would _both_ die. Would his mother, who had become so distant after his father passed, mourn for him? Would she go to his room and talk to him still, even if he wasn't there? Or would she pretend he never existed and carry on with her life?

That would be the reaction most people adhered to.

He was mad at himself. No, anger didn't even begin to describe it. It was deep-seated hatred. It was self-loathing that had sunk its fangs into his spirit long ago. It was the anguish of knowing that he'd let another person slip past his walls without defending them. He'd let her lead like a meat shield in the face of danger. He was a coward. He was _worthless_. Why couldn't he have been the one shot in battle, the one who served as a cushion to break her fall?

Far off, there was a sound. More of an echo, actually. He sat up straighter and held his breath, hoping for the sound to come again. His heart was pounding in his ears, each thud making his nerves spike and echoing the throbbing in his arm. Was he hearing things? No, there it was again. A shout calling back to his in the distance. He screamed as loudly as he could, warm blood trickling over the arms that held Tifa. They'd be saved. Would the townspeople thank him? Would he be allowed into that group of friends at last? Would his mother kiss his face and praise him for his bravery and beg him for forgiveness for her negligence? The voice called back, right above him.

"Tifa?!" It was a man. _Tifa? I'm not... Oh, right, of course they'd be looking for her. Maybe they'll look for me after all this- if she survives._ "Tifa?! You there! Boy! Tell me what happened!"

He could see the dark shape of two men making their way down the mountain. But things didn't go as planned. When he told them what happened, they screamed at him, pushed him away, snatched Tifa up, and left him in the deep, dark valley to find his own way. They didn't even notice his broken arm or his swollen ankle.

Who cared about him anyway?

It was when he was fifteen that he gained the courage to face her again. But it wasn't in a casual conversation, a date, or anything like that. He was ready to tell her that he was leaving. That he was ready to get out of this town, this _prison_ that had been a living hell for fifteen years. And so, he left her a note telling her to meet him at the town well at midnight.

He wasn't even sure that she would come. Yet there she was, in a pale blue dress with her legs crossed over the edge of the towering structure. He'd sneaked up from behind and started talking quietly. It was easier than he thought it was going to be. They talked about SOLDIER and Sephiroth and the Shinra. They talked about dreams and endless possibilities. He promised that he would make it into the newspapers. She promised to look out for them. Then she made him promise to save her when she was in another dilemma, like a true hero. He was silent a moment, wondering if he really _could_ do that. Finally, he nodded.

"Alright. I promise." He _had_ tomake the cut now.

The months of training in Midgar were hard. It was made even harder when those first classers Genesis and Angeal vanished. There was that other soldier named Zack. They'd become friends fairly quickly. It was strange, to him, for someone that hadn’t even had his mother care about him. To want this companionship regardless of whether or not he made it into SOLDIER. To help him figure out new techniques even when he wasn't strong enough. When Sephiroth betrayed them... _his_ hero was gone. All he had dreamt to be, all he had aspired for, just _gone_. And then Shinra turned, and they _stole_ his only friend. His only hope. His practical _brother_.

Saving her was more natural than he thought it would be. He'd fallen to her side and carried her out of harm's way before charging after Sephiroth in Mount Nibel's reactor. When the katana sliced through him like butter, it was the most excruciating thing he'd ever felt. His father's face, his mother burning alive, and Tifa's collapsed body under the crumbled bridge. His promise to never let someone die like that again. His promise to protect them, no matter the cost... It didn't matter if he was in SOLDIER or not, they were depending on him. He found the strength to lift his enemy by his own blade and throw him into the depths of the reactor. He'd collapsed then, exhausted and bleeding out. Someone else would have to save her...

He was tossed into the sea of unknown. Which way was up, and which way was down? It hurt to try to remember. It hurt to try thinking about the past. It wouldn't come to him. Where was that empty feeling coming from? Why did it always have to _hurt_ _so bad_? Avalanche... the mismatched clown crew of warriors he'd gathered... _They_ could all remember. _They_ could share stories, funny, painful, and everything in between. _They_ had something to fight for. _They_ had their reasons for pursuing Sephiroth. He had nothing. He couldn't remember any stories and he couldn't fight for anything but himself; he was being dragged to the maniac he'd once admired by an invisible force.

And then there was clarity. He could see again when the fog was lifted. He hadn't made it into SOLDIER. He hadn't been Tifa's childhood friend. There was never a time he led anyone until now. But he didn't _care_. They'd saved the Planet and he'd kept Tifa safe.

He could still remember the pain of Zack's death. He could still feel the betrayal inside that burned him alongside the flames in Nibelheim. He could still remember the feeling of being all alone in that valley, knowing he would rather bleed out there than go home to see his mother cry again. But now he wasn't alone. He had his family of rag-tag-clown-show-mismatched-warriors, and that was good enough. In the jumbled mess of the crowd, he'd found himself.

He had finally become Cloud Strife.


End file.
